“I heard everybody that hit Cuisine last night is dead,” Dazz said.
“No, they’re not,” Da-Juan said and quickly convinced them that they were all alive. “We sent them to The Poconos to cool out after the hit.”
“All expenses paid,” Shandrel added. “Free liquor and food.”
“And you know the Big Dawg got them niggas set up with as much pussy as they can handle,” Da-Juan lied.
“So, where we goin’ after we do this?” Romy asked.
“Same spot,” Da-Juan said.
“I don’t like The Poconos,” Bullet said. “I wanna go to AC or to Foxwoods or some shit like that.”
“And that’s why you don’t call no shots, little young-ass nigga,” Da-Juan said and got in his face. “What you gonna do in AC or Foxwoods? Gamble in the casino, eat your ass off at the buffets, get drunk at the bars and see some shows? That your plan, little young-ass nigga?”
“Yeah, all that sounds good,” Bullet said smiling and nodding at his boys.
“And when the word gets back that your dumb ass is hanging out in AC, your little young-ass will be dead.”
“That’s if the big dawg don’t have one of these niggas kill you first,” Shandrel added pointing at Dazz, Moe Z and Romy.
The smile slowly disappeared from Bullet’s face. “I didn’t think of that shit,” he said.
“That’s why you don’t call no shots, little young-ass nigga. Now let’s go,” Da-Juan said, and the now six-man team headed out for the attack on Shooters.
Satisfied that she had sent a message after Doc’s murder and the hit at Nick’s reception, Rain was on her way back to J.R.'s. As Jackie drove, she thought about her time as boss. She had come to power after Wanda’s reign as boss of The Family. During that time, The Family was fighting the wars Wanda had started, just as they were fighting the war she had started now.
Despite what Black told her, the fact that all this death and destruction started because she killed DP was always on her mind. It didn’t matter to her that the executions of Evander and Big Frank were just as responsible, to Rain it was her fault that they were where they were, and it was her responsibility to end it.
She had been going about fighting this war the wrong way. Rain had simply been responding to Barnes and Mobley’s tactics with superior force. To this point, that strategy hadn’t proven to be a deterrent and was therefore, ineffective. So, it was beyond time to start taking the fight to Barnes and Mobley.
Put these boys out of business. Permanently, as she and Black had discussed.
Therefore, on the way back to J.R.'s, Rain began assigning targets based on Baby Chris’s list of Barnes and Mobley’s money-making spots.
“Roll by Shooters, Jackie,” Carter said.
“What you wanna go to Shooters for?” Rain wanted to know.
She was still mad at him for not telling her that he had killed Damián Custodio and he could hear it in her voice. It made her wonder if she could trust Carter, and that made her wonder if she had made a mistake making him her consigliere.
Carter looked at Rain and knew she was mad. He laughed a little to himself each time he thought that the reason he was in this shape was that he rushed off to fuck Fantasy instead of rushing off to tell Rain what he had done.
Good pussy makes a nigga make stupid mistakes sometimes, Carter thought and vowed to never let it happen again.
He understood that he had betrayed her trust and would have to work to earn it back. So even though Carter resented the tone of her question, he answered The Boss of The Family with respect.
“Since we were close by, I need to make Treach aware of our new direction and his place in it,” Carter said, and Rain nodded her head. When she did, Jackie headed in that direction. “With Hassan being down and Ryder keeping the money going, Treach has really stepped up. I’ve asked him to handle some things for me and he’s come through every time,” Carter said.
It made Rain think back to the night Cynt was murdered and Black put Treach in charge and she wondered why.
At the time, everybody knew that pussy was Treach’s primary purpose in life. A fact proven since at the time of Cynt’s murder, he was fucking Maserati and Boots. But Rain had come to understand that Black had looked past all that and saw the soldier that Treach would become, in the same way that Black saw potential in her when all everybody else saw was the out of control bitch that Nick was fucking.
Black had showed confidence in her, just like he had shown in Treach that night. And just like Treach, she had made plenty of mistakes along the way. Mistakes that Black had to clean up. Rain looked at Carter and knew that she had to recognize that he was going to make mistakes too. But that didn’t mean that she had chosen the wrong man for the job.
They arrived at Shooters just after Dazz, Moe Z, Bullet and Romy went inside.
“Fuck!” Shandrel shouted.